Tea Party: Will you be drinking or dunking?
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/04/15/art.teaparty1.gi.jpg caption="Activists nationwide are holding gatherings on Tax Day, April 15."]WASHINGTON (CNN) – Finger sandwiches won't be served, but there will be a lot of frustration brewing about the current tax system at "Tea Parties" being held Wednesday across the nation.
Activists are holding these events on tax day to voice their opposition to the current tax system and the federal government's spending decisions, such as bailing out the banks and the auto industry.
So, what do you think? Have President Obama and Congress taken the right steps to help the ailing economy? Have Republicans been smart to oppose his fiscal policies? Does the tax code need an overhaul?
Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.
Here are some CNN stories about the nationwide "Tax Day Tea Party":
Activists gear up for national 'Tax Day Tea Party'
GOP uses tax day to raise money
GOP encourages supporters to send virtual tea bags to top Dems
Listen: CNN Radio analyzes the politics of Tax Day
I hope none of these folks used roads or public transportation to get to these events.
People just love to rage whether they understand what they are doing or not. I suspect you could not get into a coherent discussion based on reality from any one of them.
I can't wait for the details of these demonstrationtions later on this week. Digging always brings about dirt!
How dudmb are these people..Thet are only protesting against themselves.!.Don't they know that these so called tax-hikes propsed by the Obama Adm are taxes against the wealthiest people and not directed toward the Middle -Class..But I guess this is a little known fact that the GOP is not pressing on, but rather have some people brain-washed into thinking they are really protesting against the goverment..Funny, wonder what all these so called GOP -to much govenrment spending complainers were the past 8 years !!! We know where they weren't though !!
Jesus – please bless republicans with some sanity.
Hey only republicans and the super rich along with big business sponsorship are going to the tea parties.
That's because they are used to bush and his tax cut tax cut for the super rich. When they finally have to pay their fair share of taxes they start to whine. Isn't if funny that the only solution they have is these stupid tea parties. Did anyone make sure they sent them enough LEMONS. Cause that is all the real American public has gotten for the last eight years. Lemon lemon lemon while the big business, corporations, robber baron banks and the super rich have gotten away with paying no taxes. Rude awakening, isn't it republicans.
@ T from MO:
Well put. Couldn't agree more.
Taxation without representation???
No – Taxation without Republican representation!
Last I heard that was the will of the people in a nationwide democratic vote held last November. Even in Minnesota.
SOME people seem to have forgotten that!
What a joke. Lets do nothing as the republicans have done and we will have no tea to waste. Nor food to eat. All they want is for the rich to survive and forget the poor and middle class. Conservatives, are crying, the same conservatives that put us in this mess. I think of conservatives as those people on trick or treat night sitting in their homes with the lights off. To cheap to give candy to the kids.
The people organizing, promoting and participating in these farsical "tea parties" are either ill informed or right-wing political zealots merely wanting to cause trouble, get attention and stir up the pot, so to speak, because they were tossed out of office last November. The taxes being targeted for objection were put in place during the 8 years of the Bush administration. No new taxes have been imposed, except on cigarettes, since the Democrats took control. Moreover, theire complaints about the alleged "bailouts," stimulous package and proposed budget are disingenous. It was the 8 years of failed "conservative" Republican economic policies that got us into this mess that now requires massive government spending to spur demand and thereby avoid a total economic collapse and depression. But as always, the conversatives and Republicans continue with their whining and complaining whenever someone else has to clean up the messes they leave behind. Absolutely outrageous!
Boy you Republicans crack me up with Tea Bagging Protest. This was originally started by libertarians and now you stealing their ideas and using it for your gutter agenda. WEAK!!!
The "no" Party complaining about tax laws enacted by a Republican President under a Republican Congress.... it remind me of that phrase from back to the future movie....."Hello ...is anybody home???
Have to make another comment...the tirade by CARL is that the infamous Karl Rove trying to bamboozle us by spelling his name another way...those republicans...the length they go to.
Is THIS ALL the Repugnants have?
A TEA PARTY?
Don't ANY of these HYPOCRITS have J.O.B.?
LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!
WE HAD 8 YEARS OF B.S. SHOVED DOWN OUR THROATS.....ARE WE GOING TO LET THESE PEOPLE CONTINUE TO DEGRADE OUR PRESIDENT.
WE WERE FORCED TO FOLLOW A HORRIBLE VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY, BUSH IS A NON-ENTITY, INTO YEARS WORTH OF WARS JUST SO HIS HALIBERTON COULD MAKE GAZZILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
WE MUST MAKE THE REPUBLICANS A NON-ISSUE!!
THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO SAY THAT INTERESTS THE REST OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.
REPUBLICANS ARE ALSO RECRUITING WHITE SUPREMISTS INTO THE FOLD.
WELCOME TO THE REPUBLICAN NEW WORLD ORDER......CHAOS
Susan Roesgen...what an embarrasement!
Reporting on the Tea party, she couldn't just give us the facts and report what was going on, she had to interject her own silly opinions. How shoddy.
When I see her again I'm going to change the channel.
@T from MO-
The rich getting richer is not based on them "working" harder than everyone else for their money! For you to say so is ignorance at its most extreme. Our tax system is the way it is in order to create a wealthier society for all. Not just for the ones that already "have". In the 50's and 60's our Nation saw huge increases in our standard of living due to the New Deal. Once the GOP were able to start rolling those policies back slowly but surely our middle class began to shrink.
Don't tell me I don't work hard for my money. Maybe if I'd been born with a silver spoon in my mouth I'd talk foolish ignorance like you, but I didn't and I am out here just like all the other hard working middle class folks struggling to get by in a system that has been slowly and meticulously fixed for the rich by Republicans!
I am so excited that the GOP are obviously on their last leg. If this is all they got....let them have it. I am laughing loudly at these people protesting the biggest tax break that the working class has ever received. Ironically, these people should be at work instead of relying on my tax dollars for their welfare checks.
Hey, did Rush sanction this??? I sure hope you guys got his permission or there will be heck to pay.
This would be funny if it weren't so sad. First the tea party was about higher taxes. then when people found out that they all were getting tax cuts, it became about the Presidents budget. Where were these protests when Bush took us from a budget surplus to a deficit?
Wow! Hundreds of Protesters?!?!?
Let me take a look at how many people attended the President's innauguration....
I am somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of borrowed money that Congress has authorized; however, I also know that the banks and businesses–both large and small–are so intertwined that if one fails it creates a domino effect and others go down with it. There is no reasonable response other than the government loaning money to keep banks and businesses afloat. The current climate is worse than 1929-30.
"Anyway, yes the republicans want our country to fail. It's obvious."
I don't think the Republicans want the country to "fail." I think they are a sorely misguided lot who think that by, somehow, reinacting the Boston Tea Parties they are fighting the concept of "taxation without representation." I hate to break it to them, however, this isn't a dictator King from England trying to raise our taxes. It seems that all everyone is doing, at this point, is taking a bunch of cheap shots at each other. The Democrats attack the Republicans for making a mockery of what was a very historical moment in our nations history, and the Republicans attacking the Democrats, specifically the President and his administration, for taxes that he had nothing to do with.
I don't like all this split-party fighting. I think the Republicans and Democrats alike are tearing this nation apart from the inside out. We're forcing people to choose sides. The Republicans are leading innocent people astray with all their Fox News chatter, telling people that it's somehow Obama's fault for the higher taxes, even though anyone who is making less that $250,000 a year will be getting tax breaks, and that's for the '09-'10 year. Not the '08-'09 year. Think about that, folks. Bush was still in office, right? He was the one who sat behind that desk and raised taxes for everyone; except the few wealthy.
Obama's spending might seem out of control, but if it's helping our economy, which if anyone reads the news and keeps up with what's happening on Wall Street and within the housing market, you will see that it is. By pumping money into the economy he's trying to bolster it in the attempts to get it back on it's feet enough that we, as tax-paying, hard working, blue-collar Americans can start re-paying that debt. Ultimately it's my generation that is going to have to suffer the consiquences of this, if there are any. We're the ones who continue to get ridiculous amounts of medicare, social security and so on taken out of each and everyone one of our pay checks to support the unevitable Baby Boomer generation retiring; in droves.
You have to give the President a chance to mess up before you can start pointing the finger. He's bound to make a few blunders, but haven't we sat back and watched 8 years of one huge blunder after another? At least you can sit through a conversation with Obama and not get lost five words in as he stutters over the attempt to say a word with more than three syllables. Think about that one.
For those who claim that I'm working against my self-interest because I make less than $250k/yr:
a) The federal government is sticking it to our kids and grandkids to pay for this, not us. I'll be out there demonstrating on their behalf more so than my own.
b) Wait and see how long that $250k limit remains inviolate.
We need to change course now. That means real cuts in spending (sorry social democrats) and real reform of the tax code (sorry tax attorneys).
Silly, sad, pathetic and another step on the road to GOP oblivion. When will the GOP present us with a respectable and intelligent alternative to the Democratic Party?
@Carl: you are either a naive stooge, or a disengenuous rightwinger. Your attempt to characterize the Tea Party as a populist uprising/protest is starkly pathetic. But even if you honestly hold your concerns, today you are being played as a stooge by the rightwing - there is NOTHING bi-partisan about today's tea activities. You complain that FoxNews joined your Tea Party, but that alone should give you pause to think, and realize that you have been PLAYED a fool by the same people who created this problem.
The orginal teaparty was a protest against the Tea Act which granted licenses to the deeply indebted East India company to import tea to the colonies but outlawed or heavily taxed other companies doing so.
(The Tea that was dumped was East India company tea.)
So, the original issue was that other tea companies were being treated unfairly and this particular tea company got a tax advantage. Thus, their tea was dumped in the harbor in protest.
First off – this is extremely offensive to me. The history of the Tea Party is a fight against the oppression of British rule and the excessive taxes that they imposed that went straight to the monarchy. We are neither oppressed nor are we paying for the queen's next jewel studded tiara. The money we pay in taxes goes right into programs that (at least now under Obama) go toward improving our country and our health care system, educational system, infrastructure as well as trying to curb (or hopefully eliminate altogehter) our alarming dependence on foreign oil.
I view this as short-sighted and, yes, it is partisan, and these people do nothing but prey upon ignorance for their own politigal gain. All I hear are talking points and buzz words – there is nothing substantial in any of the rhetoric.
And, to all everyone dressed up in colonial costumes – you are making a mockery of our nation's great history! You should be ashamed of yourselves and in the years to come you will look back and every one of you will try to deny your involvement.
If you really want to protest, that's great! Do it, just don't use such a signficiant historic event to spread propaganda and lies. Thank you.